Thursday , March 28 2024
Dad wants some Mommy time.

Hubby on Strike, Marital Bliss Sought

A Michigan couple is facing a very common issue for those married with young children. Dad has had enough and decided to go on strike — on strike in this case includes camping out on the roof of his house. His principal demand is the kids have got to go; well not, like, out of the house or anything, just out of the marital bed. He apparently wants some Mommy time too.

This is something I can relate to. Our son, now 2, still sleeps in our bed. It’s not ideal, but it’s the dynamics of our familial arrangements. My son is breastfed at night and this is done not just for health reasons, but because I feel it also creates a close child/parent bond during a crucial time in a child’s formative years.

We had this same arrangement with my daughter, who is now 6 ½. She moved to her own bed at age 3, which took place over a course of about six months of transition. I plan to do the same with our son, but you know how boys are, so I suspect the process will be a bit more complicated.

My husband has been pretty open-minded about this arrangement. I suspect this has more to do with his allergy to nighttime feedings and being awakened periodically throughout the night than anything else. We have none of these issues and have had none since the day we brought Alex home from the hospital. I can not emphasize enough what a blessing it is/was to get appropriate levels of sleep.

But — and this is a big but here — it does have an overwhelming affect on one’s alone time with the spouse and I am sure that’s where the need to strike struck the above-mentioned hubby.

Most married men want to have sexual relations with their wives. Sometimes wives even want to have sex with their husbands. Unfortunately, something happens when kids enter the marriage, whether they are in the bed or not.

Here’s a little secret about married people with small children: sex is NOT high on the priority list for mom.

Something happens to a woman when she has children, a sort of intrinsic shifting of priorities from self to care giver. Her awareness changes and she begins to lose her old self to take on the new role of mother. These are profound changes and they are the kind that we should encourage, not discourage. These moms become the pillars of a society of healthy-minded individuals.

Don’t get me wrong, we miss those times of freedom and irresponsibility, where we would flash our tits and let strange men lick tequila off our cleavage for example; but for the majority of us, we know that our new job is far more important than our personal wants and needs.

An unfortunate by-product of this maternal change, is a temporary reduction in the interest we have in sex. Sure we still like it, but it’s not ever-present in our minds like it is for men, who seem to NOT experience this profound change with fatherhood.

The good news is, as time goes by and our children grow, we slowly but surely find our old selves again, but with a much keener knowledge of who we are. So my advice to the striking hubby is be proud of your wife for having her priorities in the right place and just chill. It is only a matter of time before your wife becomes much more like those desperate housewives we see on TV drooling over the hot handyman.

Just kidding.

Well, sort of.

About Dawn Olsen

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